Korean Grill opens in East Northport

I’ll get to the food in a minute, because it is extraordinary, but first we have to talk about the exhaust system at Korean Grill in East Northport. And before we talk about the exhaust system, you have to know that in Korea, you can buy an aerosol spray that removes the distinctive smell of sweet smoke from your clothes after you have consumed a barbecue meal.

At Korean Grill, each of the 18 tables has its own charcoal brazier and, before the meat is placed on the grate that spans it, a small chimney is pulled down to hover just a few inches above the sizzling meat. The chimney sucks up all the smoke, so you leave the restaurant smelling fresh as a daisy.

This is the sort of attention to detail that Kimberly and Richard Sim bring to their new restaurant, which opened in March. Richard’s dream, his wife said, was “to open a Korean barbecue on Long Island so that we wouldn’t have to travel to Flushing or Bayside.” Richard, a hospitality veteran, ran a deli in Manhattan until the pandemic hit, but it was Kimberly who spearheaded the ventilation campaign, made more difficult because there were no other restaurants on Long Island that use charcoal-fueled grills. That meant neither the health or building departments nor the fire marshal could provide a code to follow. “We put our life savings into this and we couldn’t afford to open up and be shut down because we did something wrong,” she said. The chimneys alone cost $40,000.

The barbecue menu features 11 selections, including galbi (marinated prime short rib) and a leaner cut of beef called bulgogi. There’s pork belly (spicy, if desired), pork loin or shoulder, plus chicken thighs and jumbo shrimp. (Prices range from $33 to $54 and the portion serves two.) There’s an art to grilling these meats and you will not be expected to perform it; the server presides over the hot coals until everything is cooked and demonstrates how to put a slice of meat, a dab of sauce and, perhaps, a few pickles or relishes into a tender lettuce leaf, bundle it up and pop the hot-cold, spicy-sweet, fresh-smoky package to eat.

All barbecue dishes (and most other entrees) are accompanied by an armada of banchan, cold vegetable dishes that always include kimchi, cucumber, fish cake and soybean sprouts along with whatever Korean Grill’s banchan specialist was inspired to make that day. The banchan arguably obviate the need for starters, but you won’t want to pass up the seafood pancake or fried dumplings in special sauce or japchae, stir-fried cellophane noodles with vegetables.

If Korean Grill only served appetizers and barbecue, that would be enough. But the menu goes further into the glories of Korean cuisine with bibimbap, assorted meats and/or vegetables strewed over a bed of rice. Have your bibimbap at room temperature or in a screaming-hot stone pot (dolsot bibimbap). The menu also features hearty soups and soft-tofu stews (soondubu) with seafood, beef, pork, kimchi or combinations thereof that are, somehow, both spicy and mellow. All but one of the soups / stews is more than $20.

There’s yet another menu category of "special dishes" and here’s where you’ll find spicy stir-fried squid, house stir-fried rice cake, bulgogi-mushroom stew and the intriguingly named “army stew,” a hot pot with pork, Spam, sausage, ramen noodles, baked beans, tofu, cheese, kimchi, oysters, enoki mushrooms and vegetables. The dish is said to have originated after the Korean War, when food was scarce and home cooks augmented their larders with surplus items from American army bases in South Korea.

Before she became a ventilation expert, Kimberly was a graphic designer, and she came up with a simple décor to complement the solid wooden tables and shiny stainless chimneys: the walls are decorated with calligraphic drawings of figures depicting traditional Korean dances. The restaurant's broad front lawn has been turned into a farm and soon the Sims will be harvesting their own lettuces, peppers and Korean perilla leaves.

Korean Grill was conceived to satisfy a demanding Korean clientele, but according to Kimberly, the majority of customers are American. “Korean culture is so popular right now — K-pop music, Korean films like [Oscar winner] "Parasite," television dramas like “Squid Games” and “Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I’m not surprised that people are interested in the food too.”

Korean Grill, 2074 Jericho Tpke., East Northport, 631-499-9999, koreangrillny.com. Open Sunday, Monday and Wednesday-Thursday noon-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday noon-11 p.m.. Closed Tuesday.